1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to flavored ice and a method for manufacturing the same, which can be used for various uses in place of commercially-available block ice, and wherein tasty additives are added.
2. Relevant Art
Flavored ice, for example, ice candy, as well as flavored ice particles which are mixed into ice cream, are commonly known as "pigmented ice". Ice candy is normally produced by adding syrup and coloring pigments to water, and then, for example, placing this mixture in a closed tubular container, and cooling the periphery of this container, thereby freezing the water inside the container into ice. In addition, the aforementioned pigmented flavored ice particles are produced by dripping colored water, to which the coloring pigments have been added, onto liquid nitrogen, such that this water is instantaneously frozen; and/or by freezing a specific syrup in an ice-making apparatus.
Recently, block ice without color shades which have been uniformly pigmented have been proposed. When manufacturing flavored ice from this block ice, the block ice is crushed into ice particles by means of a roll-type crusher, and flavored ice of a predetermined diameter are then sorted by passing the aforementioned ice particles through a sieve: this flavored ice is then packed in a closed tubular container.
However, when sorting the crushed ice particles into flavored ice of a predetermined diameter in a factory environment, since the relative surface area of the ice particles is greater than that of the block ice, the surface temperature of the ice particles increases, water in the air within the room adheres to the surface of these ice particles, and neighboring ice particles are drawn together. In addition, there is also the case in which fine particles of ice adhere to the ice particles. As a result, the particle diameters of the ice particles change over time, and it becomes increasingly difficult to sort out ice particles of a predetermined particle diameter. Additionally, the sieved flavored ice sticks together, and fine particles adhere to the ice particles, thereby degrading the taste of the flavored ice.
In addition, due to the crushing of the ice block into ice particles within a chamber such as a factory or the like, there exists the fear that the water component in the air inside the operating chamber will adhere to the surface of the ice particles, thereby producing ice particles which are stuck together. In this manner, there are numerous cases in which the particle diameter of the ice particles increases due to adherence of neighboring ice particles, and there remains the fear difficulties occurring in the sorting operations, at the time of sieve-sorting of the ice particles.